Mixed Signals

Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise

Rupert Goodwins

Rupert has worked at ZDNet UK, IT Week, PC Magazine, Computer Life, Mac User, Alfa Systems, Amstrad, Sinclair, Micronet 800, Marconi Space and Defence Systems, and a dodgy TV repair shop in the back streets of Plymouth. He can still swap out a gassy PL509 with the best of 'em. If you want to promote your company or product, fine -- but please tell me what it is and why it's interesting right up front in the message. PRs: the probability of a successful pitch can be calculated by the following handy formula applied to the details of your client's latest wheeze. 3NT x 4UP x 2BI x 5EAI = P(copy)3M^3 x 2ACE x 10L, where NT = New Technology, UP = Unique Product, BI = Beer Involved, EAI = Engineers Available for Interview, M = Marketing Managers, EMEA or Mornings, ACE = Already Covered Elsewhere (i.e. your American brethren have already spilled the beans) and L = the word Leading or Leader in the first para of the press release. Dear Engineer, Researcher or Inventor: Talk to me -- it's the new stuff that makes this game worthwhile.

Latest Posts

It was a time before the GUI, when computers were micros, when memory was measured in kilobytes and storage strategy meant choosing whether to buy a second five and a quarter inch floppy drive. It was eleven days before the launch of the Apple Macintosh.

January. Not so much a month as 31 days of post-party comedown, where every pleasure is circumscribed by resolution and, let's be frank, those long, empty, fiscally-fraught acres of calendar between now and payday.

My phone was back and the battle almost won.All that remained was to run the software that gave me root access to the kernel — which took about five minutes, four minutes longer than it should due to me mistaking it for an Android app instead of the Windows executable it really was — and to actually perform the exorcisms of silence and sanity in the name of which I'd gone through all of the above.

Having decided to take control of my Samsung Galaxy S II by installing new system software, I needed to know two things: what and how. Start by asking Google about "rooting Samsung Galaxy S2" — it doesn't really matter what the topic is these days, the basic skill you need in making a good start is framing the right Google query.

The festive break presents the technically inclined with challenge and opportunity. The challenge is that petty annoyances with wayward IT can seem much more significant during those long winter days where normal work is absent.

It's 600 light years away, twice the size of Earth and has the unassuming name of Kepler-22b. But Nasa says that the planet is the first we've found, apart from our own, that could have liquid water on its surface — in other words, it orbits its star in a habitable zone.

OK, it's not much of a calamity. But when you want to be seen as leading a government intent on making the internet a safer place, heading up global cybersecurity and locking down the nation's digital jewels, it's a bit bad to be the agent of — oh, I don't know — encouraging attacks on VIP laptops.

Researchers at Columbia University have said they have uncovered a major security flaw in printers that could lead to data theft, vandalism or even a risk of fire.They say that the vulnerability, which involves rogue firmware updates that reprogram the printers and take control, could affect millions of devices already installed, that there is no easy fix, and no way to tell if it's already been exploited.

Graphene is getting some decent press at last. Its Nobel prize winning discovery has quickly mutated into an entire field of enquiry, as the material's unique electrical, mechanical and inspirational qualities are explored and put to work.

The 4004 chip is 40 today, so it's about time it had a mid-life identity crisis. Its creation story is well known — here's ZDNet UK's coverage from its 30th birthday — and it is indeed the first commercially available microprocessor.

Jack Clark, the man who lives on data the way plants live on sunlight, and myself are at Exeter University today. We'll be talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of research during the day and at 5pm, we're chairing a round table with guests from IBM, Rackspace and others on the subject of what it's like to have a career in IT.

Jack Clark, the man who lives on data the way plants live on sunlight, and myself are at Exeter University today. We'll be talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of research during the day and at 5pm, we're chairing a round table with guests from IBM, Rackspace and others on the subject of what it's like to have a career in IT.

Intel has abandoned attempts to sell x86 processors to TV manufacturers, concentrating instead on portable devices as the natural home for its Atom-based chips.The chip company put its weight behind Smart TVs in September 2010, when CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated a Google TV mixing up IM, Facebook and web browsing on top of a live TV transmission.